Taipei replica in remote Chinese province fans Taiwan invasion fears
www.france24.com
Satellite images verified by FRANCE 24 reveal that China has built a replica of Taipei’s presidential district in remote Inner Mongolia, fuelling speculation that Beijing intends to use the site as a…

Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/10664616

The satellite images reveal a layout of streets strongly resembling the Bo’ai Special Zone, a restricted area in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District that houses Taiwan’s most important state buildings, including the presidential palace, the supreme court, the ministry of justice and the central bank of Taiwan.

The Bo’ai Special Zone is subject to specific regulations, including a strict ban on overflight.

  • Baggins@beehaw.orgEnglish
    34·
    8 months ago

    This should come as no surprise. The UK’s MOD did similar, albeit on a smaller scale, for training troops for deployment in Northern Ireland, and Germany/Europe.

    I think we all know China is gearing up to attack Taiwan as they make no secret that, as far as they are concerned, it belongs to them. The fact that the Taiwanese don’t agree is neither here nor there.

    Same with Russia.

    • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
      16·
      8 months ago

      they make no secret that it belongs to them.

      Can we say instead that they think it belongs to them?

    • Zworf@beehaw.org
      10·
      8 months ago

      The UK’s MOD did similar, albeit on a smaller scale, for training troops for deployment in Northern Ireland, and Germany/Europe.

      Those are and were not their enemies and they were not specific targets. What is so eyebrow-raising here is that it is so specific.

      The fact that the Taiwanese don’t agree is neither here nor there.

      Uhmm yeah that really does make the difference between an invasion and an amicable unification. I would say what China things is neither here nor there because they don’t own it so they have nothing to say about it.

      • Baggins@beehaw.orgEnglish
        3·
        8 months ago

        You’re reading that last bit out of context. As* far as the Chinese are concerned, *what the Taiwanese think is neither here nor there. The Chinese have decided its theirs. Nobody else gets a say.

      • jarfil@beehaw.org
        5·
        8 months ago

        Sorry, let me clarify:

        • Fact: Every country in the world builds training areas simulating potential targets.
        • Question: Has the US military switched to building them fully in VR, or are they still building IRL realistic ones?
        • DdCno1@beehaw.org
          8·
          7 months ago

          Who cares? This isn’t about the US, this is a deliberate provocation by China, so let’s discuss how China is marching towards instigating an armed conflict with Taiwan.

          • jarfil@beehaw.org
            4·
            7 months ago

            I see it the other way:

            Who cares? For many years already, China has been making official declarations of intentions, running fighter jet flybys, boosting mainland chip production to stop depending on TSMC, and so on. Building a target replica is not a “provocation”, it’s a threat… but we knew that already.

            What I’m more interested in, is whether some country has managed to build replicas “invisible to satellites”, and the US is one that I’ve heard has been at least trying to (just like I’ve heard both South Korea and the US have been planning on building robot soldiers).

            That, would be a game changer. Building a replica, is “water is wet”.

            • DdCno1@beehaw.org
              3·
              7 months ago

              There’s a rumor that North Korea has an underground replica of a South Korean city in order to train spies and sleeper agents. They are said to live there for a while, learn how to blend in, speak the different dialect, handle things like electronic payment methods, etc.

        • BorgDrone@lemmy.one
          4·
          7 months ago

          There is a bit of a difference between buikding a realistic looking generic town and, say, building an exact replica of the Kremlin.

          • jarfil@beehaw.org
            3·
            7 months ago

            There are no “generic towns”; hop onto Google Maps, or even better Google Earth, and check out the distinctly different city layouts throughout the world. Whatever they chose, reveals their plans for action in one or more scenarios.

            (somewhat ironically, It’s easier to build a “generic Kremlin”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremlin_(fortification) …but with the cold war history, I’d be surprised if the US didn’t build a replica of the Moscow one at some point)

            However, I’m more interested in whether they have reached the point of making replicas “invisible to satellites”.

    • Zworf@beehaw.org
      14·
      8 months ago

      Training yes I’m sure. Training of a specific target? I don’t think so. It only makes sense if you’re really planning to attack that target, which is what makes this shocking. Does America have a mockup Kremlin?

    • jarfil@beehaw.org
      4·
      8 months ago

      Why not?

      Satellite photos are high resolution, capturing large areas at a time, which means stuff off-center is not captured perfectly orthogonal. Not sure you could tell between a satellite, high altitude balloon, or U-2 photo, just from a cropped piece of it.

        • Zworf@beehaw.org
          8·
          8 months ago

          The plane’s shadow wouldn’t be that big. Because the sun is so far away the plane’s shadow would be the same size as the actual plane (at most a bit stretched when the sun is low). Whereas this is purported to be a life-size mockup.

          The plane overlay is probably just added for dramatic effect. The kilometers-long flags are obviously not really there either. And after all, which foreign nation overflies China with military planes? It must have been a sat, not a plane.

        • Kissaki@beehaw.orgEnglish
          4·
          8 months ago

          And two flags, both added with image editing, and transitioning into transparency.

          If you take the fighter jet shadow as true size, then the training compound is so small you would crush it below your feet.